Comm 292 is the first time I had ever come across the term “uncertainty avoidance”. I was fascinated because immediately my brain made the connection to Donald Trump and his political agenda.

Uncertainty avoidance is “the degree to which people in a country prefer structured over unstructured situations.”(1) In other words, it is a way to categorize the level of fear a country has towards the unknown. Without any sort of evidence, I’m inclined to think that America falls on the higher end of this spectrum because of the amount of people who support a man who wants to build a wall to keep people out and put people of a misunderstood religion on a register. Upon further research, however, America only scored a 46 on the Uncertainty Avoidance Index as opposed to Greece and Portugal who scored over 100. (2)

So why is America’s uncertainty avoidance score not higher? First of all, I think that there’s a chance the index was created by Americans– so therefore their score reflects their perception of themselves and not necessarily how the rest of the world views them. That’s the only logical explanation, unless the index is outdated or scorers were only taking into consideration America’s more advanced half.

An alarmingly large number of Americans support the statement “Make America Great Again”. Donald Trump exploits people’s fear of criminals and drugs coming in from Mexico and the Islamic religion. His voting demographic is derived from his outrageous claims that cater to people’s fears. The fact that Trump even has a shot at presidency speaks to the fact that America is a nation (at least by half) that prefers structure and is uncomfortable with ambiguity.

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(1) pg 82 of textbook

(2) http://www.clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimensions/uncertainty-avoidance-index/